Oh, Toronto

Once again, Toronto is making headlines across the nation for slut-shaming. As you might recall, last year, a Toronto police officer sparked a firestorm of criticism and outrage when he said “women should avoid dressing like sluts not to be victimized” during a speech. That outrage turned into a movement that has swept across the US and Canada: The Slutwalk.

But apparently that wasn’t enough.

Now, shortly after Toronto police held a news conference to warn women in the area about a series of sexual assaults, Krista Ford, the niece of Mayor Tom Ford, and daughter of a Councillor, sent an awful tweet (screenshot courtesy of Gawker media):

With all of this in mind, I have signed up to attend San Francisco’s Slutwalk, occurring next weekend, September 8th, at Dolores Park. I hope that all of my readers in the Bay Area will join me. For those of you who are not in San Francisco, I’ll be taking some pictures!

What an absolutely awful thing to say! Women should be able to dress how they like, this is not an invitation for them to be in any way sexually harassed. If I saw a topless bloke walking around on a sunny day and kidnapped him to a sex dungeon I don’t think he’d be blamed for ‘provoking’ me!

Wanting to believe that a victim of a crime is at fault for attracting the criminal is a way to avoid empathy for the victim. Beyond that, its a way to avoid personal responsibility for eliminating the crime in a community. A rape victim deserves a lot of empathy and a society should actively work to eliminate it.